Big Steamers

This piece of Kipling’s Verse illustrates our dependence on sea trade. We are more reliant on it today than when the poem was penned.

It was well known to German politicians in the 30’s and 40’s, themselves, of course, the victims of economic warfare through blockade in both wars, and the last verse was regularly used as a taunt before the shipping loses were broadcast as propaganda during WW2.

Between 1939 and 1945 over 2,000 British Merchant ships were sunk with the loss of over 35,000 lives.